"The present world is often terrifying to a sensible adult. Hinton reflects its effect on youngsters in a powerfully imagined world that hums with poetry. In its pages, in the words of Yeats, a terrible beauty is born.

Join Jamie Tuff and friends on their adventures through land, sea and sky,
in a world where stars walk and Halfhawks fly.

Portraits and group painted by David Revoy.

Welcome to the Island

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​Map designed by Joel Sams.

​No Place

Only the Island survived the Great Storm. It's quite small and just a quarter of it is inhabited.

That quarter is called No Place.

The Establishment

The Establishment rule No Place. Here is what they have to say:

“We in the Establishment save lives through the boundaries we create.

Our boundaries are your protectors. And trespassers will be punished.”

Pity Me

Pity Me is No Place's largest settlement and its capital.

The Perfects

The Pity Me Perfects are students selected by the Establishment to help them rule, both in school and out.
Officially, they are selected for their objectivity and fairness. Really, they are selected from the ranks of the wealthy.

The Perfects do not live up to their name.

The Tombland Gang

The Tombland Gang are Pity Me School's resident thugs.
As the Gang’s ranks have swollen, the number of orphans plummeting to their deaths has also grown.
The Gang do live up to their name.

Funnella Fitzgerald

“I am the Headmistress of Pity Me School and the Head of the Establishment.
But you probably all know that. At least, you ought to. . . ”

Phosphor-Jones, Head of History

“Dreaming is of little use, and not to be cultivated.”

Miss Humfreeze, Head of English

The English teacher's eyes look like they could tell a thousand tales, and her wide mouth often tells them.
The manshu and juvenites love her for this, lapping up her words like they are delicious drops of non- fermented Honeydew.

No Place's Chief Doctor

“What a wonderful specimen you are! You’ll look perfect sweating out your life in my Laboratory!”

Illustrated Chapter Headings.

I drew some pictures to accompany the chapter titles. Below is a sample. Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 1. Dancing Ledge

Chapter 2. Pity Me School (for No Place Boys and Girls)

Chapter 13. Miss Mackadoo and the Brainticklers

​Chapter 30. Little Sea

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Chapter 31. Fireforge

AUDIOBOOK DRAMA

The actor in me wants to read everything out loud.

Reading The Summer Sacrifice aloud resulted in multiple revisions being made to the book. Voicing the text let me get close to my characters, see the world from outside of my own head, and it helped me gauge flow, pace and tone. Recording an audiobook seemed a natural conclusion to the publishing process. I looked forward to bringing The Summer Sacrifice to life in this way, and was excited about the potential the book would have to reach a broader audience.

When I was researching how to make and produce an audiobook, I found a podcast on The Creative Penn website, a great site for writers created by author Joanna Penn. During this podcast, acclaimed audiobook producer and author J. Daniel Sawyer talks prospective producers through the process of recording an audiobook, from preproduction to distribution.

Sawyer's advice is fantastic. Though he stresses it's a time-intensive and potentially expensive enterprise, he gives clear examples of how to go about creating your audiobook so that neither its quality nor your sanity is compromised.

On his list of things you need, I already had my voice, a good microphone, a basic knowledge of Audacity (an open source sound editing program), a wonderfully geeky boyfriend with a not-so-basic knowledge of Audacity, and a quiet room. I was so excited to commit the story to tape, but on the first day of recording, my preamp broke.

Luckily, my boyfriend gave me a Zoom sound recorder for my birthday.

The actual recording was a bit of a learning curve, and it took twice the time I had anticipated. I was much more adept at the process towards the end of recording the book. With the knowledge I had gained, I then rerecorded The Summer Sacrifice from the beginning.

The audiobook has some sound effects and original music. A few of the sounds are sampled from Sound Jay. Most of the sounds are recorded by me. For example my cat Max has a starring role. He can deliver up indignance, joy and "please feed me!" on a sixpence.

As soon as I know when the entire audiobook will be available to buy, I shall shout loudly about it here. Until then, I hope you enjoy Chapter One!

About the Author:

Holly grew up in a small, sleepy village in Suffolk. The acting bug hit her at age nine, when she was asked to play Baboushka in the school nativity. That same year she played the lead role of a naughty black poodle in a pet parlour themed ballet, and she thought she had made it. Years passed, but the acting bug didn’t. She went to Goldsmiths, University of London to study Drama, after which she completed her actor training at Arts Ed.

Writing a book was never part of the plan. But life’s full of swerves and surprises and ideas dropping into people’s heads. Holly had an idea drop into hers, and that idea became The Summer Sacrifice, and The Summer Sacrifice became the first book of the Master Game Series.